It Is What It Is: Sometimes we just need to get away

Lisa Sugarman More Content Now

Thursday

Sep 20, 2018 at 9:17 AMSep 20, 2018 at 9:17 AM

I think it’s fair to say that, from time to time, we all reach a point when we hit our limit being around people and technology and the general everyday hustle of life. That point when we just want to ignore our inbox and our notifications and every grown-up commitment we have and just jump in the car and get away. Not because we’re trying to escape life, but because we have a deep need to recalibrate ourselves and ground ourselves back to the basic, simple things that really matter.

The reality is, though, once you factor in things like kids and jobs and pets and responsibilities, the average person can’t just toss a toothbrush and a change of clothes in a bag and head out on the open road. Life just doesn’t work that way … at least not without some real planning. But it can be done. Do Not Disturbs can be activated, Out-of-Office Replies can be set, and babysitters or family or friends can take over, if only for a day or two. I mean, that is what they’re there for, right?

Because even though most of us feel like life will pile up too high and too many balls will drop if we unplug for even a single day, the truth is, life will go on. Things will still get done. People will manage. Which is something I think most of us forget. And honestly, it was something I started to forget.

That’s why I asked Dave to take two days off work and just trust me. To just let me pack our bags with the bare essentials, and not worry if there was an internet connection or WiFi or people, because all we really needed was a quiet place to sleep and eat and recharge.

And I know that can be a scary idea, the concept of unplugging from everything and everyone and isolating yourself with only one other person and nothing to fill your time but each other and the world around you. Or, it can be a brilliant idea that allows you to rediscover yourself and your plus one and remember what drew you to them in the first place and what little we all really need to be truly happy.

So, I planned a getaway. But not a resort-type escape, where you’re only really on the outer fringe of the grind, with people and life still active all around you. I took us off the grid completely, to a place with only the necessities, out in the middle of nowhere, where the sole purpose was to disconnect, breathe, and just be. A place to break the routine and do absolutely nothing except soak in the tiny sliver of world around us and remind ourselves that most of the things that fill our lives are incidental and really don’t matter at all. A place where we can step far enough out of the daily world we live in to remember that we really need very little to survive and thrive and be completely content.

I took us to a place that I’d been dying to go for ages. A place that took me back to my favorite memories growing up in nature and on mountains and on trails, with nothing around me but quietude and raw beauty and stillness. A place where the only expectation was to embrace the boredom and allow ourselves to be rejuvenated by the world around us. Where the simple art of preparing and cooking and eating a meal or lighting the perfect campfire can be fully embraced and enjoyed because there are no other distractions to get in the way. It’s a place where the coffee and the wine and the sleep and the food and the world around you is just better because you have exactly what you need and nothing more. So you appreciate those things in a completely different way.

We had four simple walls and a roof around us and a place to sleep and cook and rest and it was perfect. It was perfect because we had zero expectations of what it would be like or what we would do to fill our time. It was perfect because we let ourselves just sit and talk and wonder and reflect and laugh. We listened to each other for hours, and then hours after that. We took pleasure in cooking and eating meals together and reading to each other and discovering the little tiny world around us. We remembered what it feels like to just explore. And we committed to never stop exploring.

Where did we go? Oh, it’s a secret. And I can’t tell. Sorry. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s an actual secret that only the team who manages this place is allowed to share. But what I can tell you is that being there, even for a short slice of time, will help you reset in a way that you might not expect. Because being there, or a place like it, isolated from all the minutiae that fills our daily life, will help you realize exactly what’s important and exactly what doesn’t matter at all. And there isn’t one of us who doesn’t need that, at least every once in a while.

And ok, since I really do believe in paying things forward, especially truly good things, I can tell you how to find this place. But I’m only giving you the name.

It’s called Getaway House. The rest you’ve gotta work for.

— Lisa Sugarman lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts. Read and discuss all her columns at lisasugarman.com. Or, find them on LittleThings.com, Hot Moms Club, BeingAMom.life, GrownandFlown.com, More Content Now, and Care.com. She is also the author of LIFE: It Is What It Is and Untying Parent Anxiety: 18 Myths That Have You in Knots—And How to Get Free available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at select bookstores.

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